Others claim Soles gave them money also

We now have reason to believe that there are several other young men, in addition to Allen Strickland, receiving substantial financial assistance from Senator Soles. One of Senator Soles’ legal clients, B.J. Wright, was released from prison Monday, and it appears there is a paper trail that shows R.C. Soles has been giving him a lot of money. Billie J. Wright, 23, was released from prison on Monday after a two-year stint behind bars for crimes ranging from larceny to hit and run to assault. Wright is a client of Soles, who works as a criminal attorney in Columbus County. According to article’s from the news reporter out of Whiteville Senator Soles defended B.J. Wright on more than 30 criminal charges before the D.A. finally stepped in and threw the book at Wright in 2007. Since he went to prison, it appears that R.C. Soles has been continuing to help B.J. Wright. Documents we were given to WWAY by a source within the prison system, who shared them with the agreement that we not release their identity. They are internal prison documents that show who has been sending inmates money while they are incarcerated. They indicate B.J. Wright had a balance of more than $8,000 when he left Bladen Correctional, and his most generous benefactor was R.C. Soles. We’ve also received about a dozen reports that the Senator has purchased the ex-con a Chevrolet Tahoe, that’s sitting outside Wright’s mother’s residence in Whiteville. Wright refused our request for an interview on the matter, and the Senator hasn’t returned any of our calls for weeks. The prison documents also indicate that Soles has been giving generous financial assistance to other inmates, including Shane Coleman, and Daniel Floyd. Some at the North Carolina State Bar say while it’s highly unusual for an attorney to provide financial assistance to an inmate, it doesn’t run afoul of any professional ethics rules. There are ethical guidelines that prohibit North Carolina attorneys from entering into certain business and sexual relationships with their clients. The state bar says it’s flat out against the law to post bail for a client. It appears that B.J. Wright was able to post bonds for tens of thousands of dollars before he went to prison. We’re still trying to track down who posted those bonds, but one thing that plenty of people are telling us is that R.C. Soles hands out a lot of cash. “He had his secretary, Amanda something, who has just quit, walk out of the back of his office and hand me maybe a total of $35,000 cash. For what purpose? I don’t know,” said Stacey Scott. Since they aren’t public record, we can’t independently confirm the prison inmate bank account records. And, again, Senator Soles refuses to discuss any of these transactions with us.